Paul & everyone: I visited the company this a.m. with two people from Prodigy. (They will report there, so you can check that out too, if you use that service.)
First we toured the Clean Room. We had to "suit up" in anti-static smocks before we went in. Norris has a state-of-the-art "Chip-On-Board" production line that is a fully automated line built especially for them. There are only a few other lines like this in the world. It cost $1.6 million. Incorporated in it is a high-tech "sewing machine" that sews gold thread (REAL gold) 1/3 the diameter of human hair onto a board. For the FlashBack, it does multi-layers of stitching, and then all of this is covered by an epoxy that protects the threads and keeps them in place. It also prevents "reverse engineering" (allowing anyone to take it apart to see how its made). This is really an amazing piece of equipment. The FlashBack units are being made there now, but the line is also used for other contract work for other companies. I believe, if I remember correctly, they are running two shifts of workers right now and they're producing 20,000 FBs per month, but that is not full capacity. The FB case is put together with sonic welding which cannot be taken apart without cutting open the case. To further protect the unit, it can be bought with a leather case if desired. The newest FBs have a keyboard lock feature which prevents accidentally turning it on.
A new ad campaign will start in July for FB and VoiceLink - the PCMCIA computer sound link called "VoiceLink". In a demo of this, the FB sound clip is inserted into the computer using a linking device, and the sound can then be played over the computer, which sees the sound clip as a floppy disk and each recording as a file. The sound files are opened using File Manager, just as with text files, and they can be played, renamed, saved, scanned at fast speed, put on "pause" or change playing speed. (Soon they will have a feature allowing sound files to be saved as .wav files and these can be sent to other computers. You can save sound files onto the hard drive in compressed format at 18 minutes per MB.)
I couldn't get a definite date for availability of VoiceLink, but I was told that they want to get all of the functions available before they release it, such as the saving of .wav files and transfer to another computer. They told me demand was great for the product by medical people, realtors, etc. It is in final testing stages. A full-page ad for FlashBack will start running in "American Way", the American Airlines mag., in July. It will compare FB to other small recorders on the market - Total Recall, Sharper Image Memo Manager, Voice-It, Voice Organizer. FB has the longest recording time, it is the ONLY ONE WITH REMOVABLE MEMORY, and it is the only one with variable playback speed. It also has the least no. of buttons to operate.
There's more I'll have to add later. Have to run.
Betty |
